THAO NGUYEN PHAN
Tate St Ives

For the first large scale museum exhibition in the UK of the work of Thao Nguyen Phan, SecMoCo were approached by Giles Jackson at Tate St Ives, UK, to design the accompanying publication, bringing together documentation of existing bodies of work in painting, sculpture, moving image and sound.

First edition published by Tate St Ives, UK, 2022, on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Thao Nguyen Phan’, Tate St Ives, 5 February – 2 May 2022.
Curated by Anne Barlow (Director Tate St Ives), and Giles Jackson (Assistant Curator). Editor: Giles Jackson; 64pp; 210x148mm; 36 2-colour and 4 black & white images; single colour softcover with open binding plus 2-colour dustjacket. Texts by Anne Barlow, Joan Joanas, Thao Nguyen Phan, Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran and Pen Sereypagna.

SETTLEMENTS
David Spero

It was an absolute pleasure to work intensely over a long period with one of the UK’s foremost photographers David Spero, on a book that not only showcases fine examples of his work, but is also a vitally important historical document and resource.

Photographs by David Spero, design: David Spero and SecMoCo. First edition published by David Spero, UK, 2018; edited, and with texts by, David Spero and other contributors; 290x240mm; 256pp; 148 4-color images; casebound with 4-colour dust jacket. Printing, binding, scanning and pre-press: Henry Ling Ltd at the Dorset Press, Dorchester. Scanned from C-type analogue prints.

From the afterword:
[…] To acknowledge the structures and ways of living depicted by the images in this book, and to allow them space to exist, prompts questions about values and modes of living and their environmental impact that many would rather ignore. The threat of human impact on the planet is preferably denied, in order to maintain a consumer utopia with its comforting illusions of limitless consumption. To those like myself who are inspired by these dwellings and the way of life they embody, the images suggest a comity with nature that seeks to create a future in which human beings are a complementary part of the natural landscape within a modern context. A future where human dwelling
is once again more integrated and in harmony with the planet’s ecosystem.

For more information: www.davidspero.co.uk

CULPABLE EARTH
Steven Claydon, Firstsite

Culpable Earth is a monograph on the work of British artist Steven Claydon and was published to accompany the exhibition of the same name at firstsite, Colchester, UK (4 February – 7 May 2012). It features over 300 illustrations and previously unpublished texts about and by the artist, alongside an extended interview between Claydon and Martin Clark, Artistic Director, Tate St Ives.

The first major solo exhibition by Claydon in a UK public gallery was organised here by the acutely discerning Michelle Cotton, Senior Curator at firstsite. SecMoCo worked closely with her and the artist in the process of designing the accompanying publication, gaining a valuable insight into Claydon’s interests and preoccupations. The work draws on, engages with, and employs a huge historical resource of art, literature, design, politics and theory (for example, he is perhaps the only contemporary British artist investigating and drawing from the texts of the Pre-Socratic philosophers). From the outset Claydon’s intention was to adopt the layout and style of a particular 1960′s Italian architectural journal, (one that used the formal discipline of the then popular ‘Neue Grafik’ or ‘Swiss’ style of design), the task then was to ‘pour into’ that template documentation of his work to date, plus a generous selection from his wide-ranging research, and an illustrated and indexical chronology.

First edition published by firstsite March 2012 in an edition of 1,500 copies; edited by Michelle Cotton; texts: Martin Clark, Steven Claydon, Michelle Cotton and Patrizia Dander; 242 x 212mm; 144pp thread sewn; 260 colour and 45 b&w images; 2-colour softback cover, plus 1x metallic printing

Context from Michelle Cotton: ‘Over the last decade Steven Claydon’s sculpture, print, painting, film and performance have been worrying away at the taxonomies and values integral to the Western canon. His exhibitions with their hessian grounds, stacked pedestals, frames within frames, portrait busts and eccentric artifacts both emulate and debunk the nature of the museum’.

And from the firstsite website: ‘Claydon describes his work as being concerned with the ‘passage of materials’, namely, how materials journey from raw matter into cultural artefact. In doing so, he raises questions about the value of everyday objects. The artist sees objects as being ‘culpable’, in the sense that they reveal something about society at large. However small his starting point, a mass of atoms or a grouping of coloured pixels, Claydon combines materials and concepts in endlessly complex structures.

Claydon’s sculptures often present highly crafted objects in bespoke structures that visually reference museum displays. He brings together objects recalling historical artefacts – such as portrait busts, pots and vessels – cultural ephemera and geological samples, skilfully mixing different cultures and periods of history. Ancient technologies are combined with modern, electronic equipment and traditional craft skills are presented in digital video installations. Through these combinations, Claydon creates new, hybrid objects.

Merging reality with fiction, and appearing at once meaningful and useless, Claydon’s works oscillate between an idea of truth and fantasy, seeming to offer a fragmented image of a future civilisation’s past’.

BRITISH PAVILLION Mike Nelson
British Council

Mike Nelson represented Britain at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011, this edition was published to accompany his installation in the British Pavillion that year. Commissioned by the percipient Richard Riley, SecMoCo were asked to work with the artist for the second time (see Triple Bluff Canyon, Modern Art Oxford) on devising a publication appropriate to his work.

First published, in an edition of 1,500 copies, by The British Council, London, UK, June 1, 2011; commissioning editor: Richard Riley; coordinating editors: Gemma Latty, Emma Williams; texts: Dan Cameron, with an interview between the artist, Rachael Withers and guests.

135 x 205mm; 146pp; 92 images, including 18pp colour plate section with 74 b&w images in uncoated section; casebound with 1-colour embossed cover (no dust jacket); grey endpapers; 4 colour printed ‘inner covers’; thread sewn; printed by CPI, UK.

Context from the British Council website:
Throughout his career, Nelson has constantly returned to and re-examined territories within his own practice. […] For the British Pavilion in 2011, Nelson elected to take as his starting point another of his own key works from the past decade, Magazin: Büyük Valide Han, originally built for the 8th International Istanbul Biennial in 2003. […] Nelson has referred to the work for Istanbul as being a parasitical installation that had lodged itself into a 17th century building. Based on the photographic memory of the earlier work, with I, Impostor, Nelson not only rebuilt the original darkroom but sections of the caravanserai itself, so that now a building, from another time and place, exists inside the late 19th century British Pavilion in Venice.

The British Council published a fully illustrated book to commemorate Mike Nelson’s exhibition, which includes newly commissioned texts by Dan Cameron and Rachel Withers, and colour plates of the new work in progress.

LIFE IS TO BLAME …
Jeremy Deller

Through the the foresight of Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt, SecMoCo were pleased to be approached to design the first monograph on the early work of Jeremy Dellar, who has since become a Turner Prize-winning, internationally acclaimed artist. An absorbing feature of the design was a diagramatic key of the images, with corresponding numerical listing, incorporated on the inner front and back cover pages. It was a small publication, designed to be a pocket-sized reference tool, easily carried about the person.

First published, in an edition of 1,000 copies, by Salon 3 London, UK, 1993. Edited by Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt. Texts by John O’Reilly and Dave Beech, with additional artist annotations of featured works.
170mm x 118mm; 96pp; 136 colour and 36 b&w images; 4-colour softback cover with flaps; printed by Jim Pennington, Lithosphere, UK.

Context from the Cornerhouse website:
‘In many cases, this book provides the only permanent record of Deller’s ephemeral output, documenting the stickers, flyers and posters that have been lost forever […] This pocket-sized book, containing over 130 colour images, is a delightful illumination into Deller’s work.

Context from Amazon:
‘This is a great collection of work from the turner prize winner Jeremy Deller. This charts all of his early work from when he held an exhibition in his mum and dad’s house to when he sold t-shirts emblazoned with slogans such as ‘my booze hell’. There are also some great quotes and his style and work make you feel like you know him personally. Equally captvating for artists and non-artists, this collection of work will inspire you to create your own interventions and will help you to see society in a more positive way.’

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Your new best mate
By “davegarratt2001” on 25 April 2005
Format: Paperback
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 641,967 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

FAMILY HISTORY
Gillian Wearing

Through the investigative and informed eye of it’s director Stephen Bode, SecMoCo is privileged to have worked on many projects for Film and Video Umbrella, London, UK. FVU commission, curate and produces artists’ moving-image works and presents them in collaboration with galleries and other cultural partners.

Originally intended to be a record of the artist’s video installation ‘Family History’; through close and detailed work with the artist, this turned into a varied and visually rich document of the piece, the material surrounding its conception, and that leading up to its production.

Perhaps because of her Midland’s background, Gillian proved to be the most enjoyable and generous of artists to work with, to the point that she presented a painting used on the set for the video installation to SecMoCo as a gift. It’s a rather fine seascape and will be uploaded here at some point in the future.

Published by Film and Video Umbrella, London, and Maureen Paley, London, 2007 in association with at Ikon Birmingham, UK, and Artists in the City, Reading, UK. Edited, and with a text by, Steven Bode; additional texts: Paul Morley, Stuart Comer; 280 x 216 mm; 80pp thread sewn; 4-colour and black and white illustrations; 4-colour printed paper case cover (no dust jacket);

From the Ikon website: ‘This immaculately designed publication traces the development of this project in a visual style whose distinctive aesthetic draws out parallels between the 1970s and the present that are such a feature of the work itself. Continuing the biographical theme of the exhibition, the book brings together film stills and location photographs with other personal and archive material, and features essays by critic Paul Morley and project curator Steven Bode, and an interview between Gillian Wearing and Stuart Comer’.

GAVIN TURK COLLECTED WORKS
White Cube

‘Gavin Turk Collected Works 1989-1993’ was the first monograph on this celebrated British artist’s work, designed to accompany his first solo exhibition at Jay Jopling/White Cube, London.

Published in an edition of 1500 copies by Jay Jopling/White Cube, UK, 1993. Edited by Gavin Turk; texts by Andrew Wilson and Simon Bill; 280 x 200mm; 64pp; 4-colour images throughout; casebound, with cloth quarter-binding, embossed (no dustjacket).

UNHOLY LIBEL
Jake & Dinos Chapman

For their first major U.S. exhibition (‘Six Feet Under’ Gagosian Gallery, New York, USA, September 13-October 11, 1997) Jake and Dinos Chapman asked SecMoCo to design the accompanying publication. More than a catalogue, it was seen as a stand alone edition developing the themes and concerns of the work, as such the design took a blasphemous turn, adopting the form of the helpful reading material you could once find in the drawer of any hotel room bedside cabinet.

First published by Gagosian Gallery, US, 1997; edited, and with a text by Jake and Dinos Chapman; 215x164mm; 152pp; thread sewn; 48 color illustrations; gilt edges; brown faux-leather covers in plastic jacket, gold embossing. Print: Jim Pennington for Lithosphere, London

Context from Amazon:
Best Sellers Rank: #4,107,057 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
By Antonio A. Urdiales on December 30, 2005
‘Once again Jake and Dinos Chapman take us on a trip through the absurd. This book has a very thin narrative running through it. If you’re looking for fiction by two of the most vile of Britain’s artworld, you’ve come to the wrong place, LEAVE NOW!

The books is a series of vingettes detailing gruesome monstrosities in the style of J.G. Ballard. I’m sure there was a plot in there somewhere, but the chapters were so short (think two to three a page) and fragmented that I lost it. Mostly it just read like details from an apocalyptic surgical guide. Which isn’t for everybody. But if you enjoy exploding brains and monstrous genitalia, LA TEE DA! The written word was fun if not tiring. But the real beauty of the book is in the plates of the boys sculptures. The sculptural work of the Chapman brothers is grotesque divinity, detailing mutated children from a land in which all normal notions of beauty have been subverted. And the colored plates dispersed throughout the writings were excellent examples of their sculptural works and just truly a joy to look at. The book is also gilt edged with a beautifully embossed cover, it’s also a very tiny book which makes one desire to carry it around as a horrifying talisman of the new age. This book is a VERY rare artbook as well, created by the Gagosian Gallery in New York. An edition of this book costs about $100 to thousands for signed copies. I would highly recommend picking up an edition up if you’re a collector of YBA artworks or the Chapman brothers, I wouldn’t doubt that the price will skyrocket in coming years.’

http://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Libel-Six-Feet-Under/dp/1880154145

TRIPLE BLUFF CANYON
Mike Nelson

Commissioned by the elegantly exacting Suzanne Cotter, this book was published to accompany the exhibition by 2004 Turner Prize nominee Mike Nelson at Modern Art Oxford.

The front cover utilised an Arts Magazine cover from May 1978 depicting a seminal work by Robert Smithson that the artist had recreated in the gallery at MAO. As such, the title and cover information was transferred to the reverse, adopting the typographic style of the gallery ads of that period.

First published, in an edition of 1000 copies, by Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, UK, 01 January 1999; edited by Suzanne Cotter; texts: Jeremy Millar and Brian Aldiss; 210x170mm; 72pp; 58 images, including 8pp colour plate section, 50 b&w image in uncoated section; paperback with 4-colour cover thread sewn; printed by Art Quarters, UK.

Context, from Andrew Mead at the Architect’s Journal website:
‘Entering a Mike Nelson installation is like stumbling into a minicab office in the early hours of the morning in the wrong part of a town you don’t know – and then things get worse’